Left Foot Forward looks at five things David Cameron doesn't want you to know about the Bedroom Tax.
The Bedroom Tax, which will come in from 1 April 2013 as part of the 2012 Welfare Reform Act, will charge people in social housing based on how many spare rooms they have, and will hit tenants aged 16 to 65.
Put simply, it means a cut to the amount of benefit a person will get if they have a spare bedroom in their housing association home.
Benefits will be reduced by 14% for one room and 25% for two or more bedrooms. On average, an individual affected by the Bedroom Tax will lose £14-£25 a week.
The bedroom tax is supposed to encourage those who live in social housing with spare rooms to downsize in order to make way for larger families.
That’s what it is supposed to do. But what impact will it really have?
Left Foot Forward has put together five things David Cameron doesn’t want you to know about the Bedroom Tax.
1. Two-thirds of
those whohouseholds that will be affected by the Bedroom Tax have disabled people in them. Down-sizing is often wildly unfeasible for wheelchair users due to the shortage of wheelchair accessible properties. In effect, the Bedroom Tax risks penalising disabled people for being disabled – those who cannot move to a smaller property will be forced to pay more for their housing needs.2. In many areas of the country there simply aren’t enough smaller houses for people to downsize to (which the Department of Work and Pensions accepts). A DWP assessment estimates that 31% (660,000) of social housing tenants will have their housing benefit cut as a result of the Bedroom Tax. What is likely to happen to those families who lose between £48 and £88 a month from their housing benefit because there aren’t smaller properties for them to move in to? Are they going to be evicted? Are they going to go hungry?
3. It will cause unnecessary misery and suffering. ITV has given real-life examples of how the Bedroom Tax could hit vulnerable people, such as the couple where the husband had a stroke and can no longer share a bedroom with his wife, or a tenant who uses her second bedroom as a sterile room to receive nutrition from a machine after she had surgery for bowel cancer. Both tenants will have £48 per month taken from their housing benefit from April.
4. The Bedroom Tax could cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds due to the likely increase in homelessness. A typical homelessness case costs £24,000, according to Govan Law Centre. It costs local authorities and housing providers £15,000. Evicting a tenant also costs a social landlord on average £6,000. The shortage of available smaller properties, combined with the inability of some tenants to pay the extra money, will see a spike in homelessness (bad enough in itself), and this will cost lots and lots and lots of money.
5. The new provisions could make overcrowding mandatory. There is no provision in the legislation for houses where the bedroom is only a single room. Children under 10 are expected to share a room as are under 16s if they are of the same sex. The rules do not refer to the size of bedrooms. A bedroom will always count as a bedroom for Housing Benefit no matter how small.
Use this benefits calculator to find out if you will be affected by the changes.
123 Responses to “Five things David Cameron doesn’t want you to know about the Bedroom Tax”
Citizen Jane
I did downsize from a big 2B house with frontage & garden to a small 2B flat on 1st floor, up 2flights of stairs & with no balcony or outdoor space. A family was able tolive in the home I brought my daughter up in & I was instructive in doing that. The Legal National Swap Scheme of 2004 was counter signed by 2 Councils & 2 different Housing Associations, nowhere in the contract did it state or was it mentioned I should go straight to a 1 bed. Bare in mind the Localisation Act shows that Councils & Housing Associations knew, as far back as 2004 & restated in an ammendment of 2010, this was therefore the duty of the bodies involved to make this clear, it is not in the contract.
As dj mentions below flats in the area are as, if not more,expensive & in this area Council Tax rises just 2 miles up the road from me. I am self employed (or self unemplyed as I call it) & earn peanuts,I don’t sign on but do need help to have shelter. The Employment demographic here is dire but I keep trying & take all work I can do as well as looking for full time emplyment in the area. As there are predominantly all zero hour employers out there, it isn’t easy, I’d hoped to be working & had dreams of buying my property one day, I’ve been a good tenant for 22 years in 2 Housing Associations. When I moved my flat was in a real state but it’s as seen, having upgraded substancially over the years (and the years I was full time employed) another gain for the Associations. Who will pay for the move or to upgrade another potential state?
I never give up trying & should I be lucky enough to regain full time emplyment why should I loose my right to buy, my H.A won’t assure me a transfer to another place from their stock, in fact they are depleated, if I moved outside of my current H.A the Right to Buy will be lost. In the first instance they (H.A) told me they may have internal mutual transfers available but that has since changed to go on the Home-Swap page on line.
I feel this is breach of contract, miss-information & whilst the Government is guilty, yet again, of bashing the weakest, Councils, H.A’s have been happily taking Housing Benefit for underoccupied stock knowingly & the local authority Housing Benefits guilty of not flagging this up but allowing it to go on. When they are involved in the swapping proceedure it was their duty also to point out any future penalties, should I dare to need help in the mess they’ve created! I wonder do the many listed Houses & Aristocratic piles, being paid for by the tax payer, being charged for the hundreds of rooms in their stately homes?
Lastly, the time alloted is unworkable in any legal-speak & in order to go on the “Home-Swap” site you can’t be in debt, as most people will be as of today. The Councils are lowering Council Tax awards so that will be 2 lots more to pay out a week:Bedroom Tax&Council Tax.
To so blatently penalise & worse block the tenant from manovre is cutting a person’s legs off & asking them to run. One size doesn’t fit all, it isn’t fair & frankly it can’t be legal, so lets sort it!!
Citizen Jane
I did downsize from a big 2B house with frontage & garden to a small 2B flat on 1st floor, up 2flights of stairs & with no balcony or outdoor space. A family was able tolive in the home I brought my daughter up in & I was instructive in doing that. The Legal National Swap Scheme of 2004 was counter signed by 2 Councils & 2 different Housing Associations, nowhere in the contract did it state or was it mentioned I should go straight to a 1 bed. Bare in mind the Localisation Act shows that Councils & Housing Associations knew, as far back as 2004 & restated in an ammendment of 2010, this was therefore the duty of the bodies involved to make this clear, it is not in the contract.
As dj mentions below flats in the area are as, if not more,expensive & in this area Council Tax rises just 2 miles up the road from me. I am self employed (or self unemplyed as I call it) & earn peanuts,I don’t sign on but do need help to have shelter. The Employment demographic here is dire but I keep trying & take all work I can do as well as looking for full time emplyment in the area. As there are predominantly all zero hour employers out there, it isn’t easy, I’d hoped to be working & had dreams of buying my property one day, I’ve been a good tenant for 22 years in 2 Housing Associations. When I moved my flat was in a real state but it’s as seen, having upgraded substancially over the years (and the years I was full time employed) another gain for the Associations. Who will pay for the move or to upgrade another potential state?
I never give up trying & should I be lucky enough to regain full time emplyment why should I loose my right to buy, my H.A won’t assure me a transfer to another place from their stock, in fact they are depleated, if I moved outside of my current H.A the Right to Buy will be lost. In the first instance they (H.A) told me they may have internal mutual transfers available but that has since changed to go on the Home-Swap page on line.
I feel this is breach of contract, miss-information & whilst the Government is guilty, yet again, of bashing the weakest, Councils, H.A’s have been happily taking Housing Benefit for underoccupied stock knowingly & the local authority Housing Benefits guilty of not flagging this up but allowing it to go on. When they are involved in the swapping proceedure it was their duty also to point out any future penalties, should I dare to need help in the mess they’ve created! I wonder do the many listed Houses & Aristocratic piles, being paid for by the tax payer, being charged for the hundreds of rooms in their stately homes?
Lastly, the time alloted is unworkable in any legal-speak & in order to go on the “Home-Swap” site you can’t be in debt, as most people will be as of today. The Councils are lowering Council Tax awards so that will be 2 lots more to pay out a week:Bedroom Tax&Council Tax.
To so blatently penalise & worse block the tenant from manovre is cutting a person’s legs off & asking them to run. One size doesn’t fit all, it isn’t fair & frankly it can’t be legal, so lets sort it!!
Citizen Jane
I did downsize from a big 2B house with frontage & garden to a small 2B flat on 1st floor, up 2flights of stairs & with no balcony or outdoor space. A family was able tolive in the home I brought my daughter up in & I was instructive in doing that. The Legal National Swap Scheme of 2004 was counter signed by 2 Councils & 2 different Housing Associations, nowhere in the contract did it state or was it mentioned I should go straight to a 1 bed. Bare in mind the Localisation Act shows that Councils & Housing Associations knew, as far back as 2004 & restated in an ammendment of 2010, this was therefore the duty of the bodies involved to make this clear, it is not in the contract.
As dj mentions below flats in the area are as, if not more,expensive & in this area Council Tax rises just 2 miles up the road from me. I am self employed (or self unemplyed as I call it) & earn peanuts,I don’t sign on but do need help to have shelter. The Employment demographic here is dire but I keep trying & take all work I can do as well as looking for full time emplyment in the area. As there are predominantly all zero hour employers out there, it isn’t easy, I’d hoped to be working & had dreams of buying my property one day, I’ve been a good tenant for 22 years in 2 Housing Associations. When I moved my flat was in a real state but it’s as seen, having upgraded substancially over the years (and the years I was full time employed) another gain for the Associations. Who will pay for the move or to upgrade another potential state?
I never give up trying & should I be lucky enough to regain full time emplyment why should I loose my right to buy, my H.A won’t assure me a transfer to another place from their stock, in fact they are depleated, if I moved outside of my current H.A the Right to Buy will be lost. In the first instance they (H.A) told me they may have internal mutual transfers available but that has since changed to go on the Home-Swap page on line.
I feel this is breach of contract, miss-information & whilst the Government is guilty, yet again, of bashing the weakest, Councils, H.A’s have been happily taking Housing Benefit for underoccupied stock knowingly & the local authority Housing Benefits guilty of not flagging this up but allowing it to go on. When they are involved in the swapping proceedure it was their duty also to point out any future penalties, should I dare to need help in the mess they’ve created! I wonder do the many listed Houses & Aristocratic piles, being paid for by the tax payer, being charged for the hundreds of rooms in their stately homes?
Lastly, the time alloted is unworkable in any legal-speak & in order to go on the “Home-Swap” site you can’t be in debt, as most people will be as of today. The Councils are lowering Council Tax awards so that will be 2 lots more to pay out a week:Bedroom Tax&Council Tax.
To so blatently penalise & worse block the tenant from manovre is cutting a person’s legs off & asking them to run. One size doesn’t fit all, it isn’t fair & frankly it can’t be legal, so lets sort it!!
Citizen Jane
I did downsize from a big 2B house with frontage & garden to a small 2B flat on 1st floor, up 2flights of stairs & with no balcony or outdoor space. A family was able tolive in the home I brought my daughter up in & I was instructive in doing that. The Legal National Swap Scheme of 2004 was counter signed by 2 Councils & 2 different Housing Associations, nowhere in the contract did it state or was it mentioned I should go straight to a 1 bed. Bare in mind the Localisation Act shows that Councils & Housing Associations knew, as far back as 2004 & restated in an ammendment of 2010, this was therefore the duty of the bodies involved to make this clear, it is not in the contract.
As dj mentions below flats in the area are as, if not more,expensive & in this area Council Tax rises just 2 miles up the road from me. I am self employed (or self unemplyed as I call it) & earn peanuts,I don’t sign on but do need help to have shelter. The Employment demographic here is dire but I keep trying & take all work I can do as well as looking for full time emplyment in the area. As there are predominantly all zero hour employers out there, it isn’t easy, I’d hoped to be working & had dreams of buying my property one day, I’ve been a good tenant for 22 years in 2 Housing Associations. When I moved my flat was in a real state but it’s as seen, having upgraded substancially over the years (and the years I was full time employed) another gain for the Associations. Who will pay for the move or to upgrade another potential state?
I never give up trying & should I be lucky enough to regain full time emplyment why should I loose my right to buy, my H.A won’t assure me a transfer to another place from their stock, in fact they are depleated, if I moved outside of my current H.A the Right to Buy will be lost. In the first instance they (H.A) told me they may have internal mutual transfers available but that has since changed to go on the Home-Swap page on line.
I feel this is breach of contract, miss-information & whilst the Government is guilty, yet again, of bashing the weakest, Councils, H.A’s have been happily taking Housing Benefit for underoccupied stock knowingly & the local authority Housing Benefits guilty of not flagging this up but allowing it to go on. When they are involved in the swapping proceedure it was their duty also to point out any future penalties, should I dare to need help in the mess they’ve created! I wonder do the many listed Houses & Aristocratic piles, being paid for by the tax payer, being charged for the hundreds of rooms in their stately homes?
Lastly, the time alloted is unworkable in any legal-speak & in order to go on the “Home-Swap” site you can’t be in debt, as most people will be as of today. The Councils are lowering Council Tax awards so that will be 2 lots more to pay out a week:Bedroom Tax&Council Tax.
To so blatently penalise & worse block the tenant from manovre is cutting a person’s legs off & asking them to run. One size doesn’t fit all, it isn’t fair & frankly it can’t be legal, so lets sort it!!
Citizen Jane
Lets face the truth & point the finger at the true criminals-THE HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS,COUNCILS & HOUSING BENEFITS! Between them they have allowed under-occupancy to go on freely for at least 30 years, happilly taking the money whislt Housing Benefits failed to deal with it.
The time line & stock available is unrealistic & non existance. If peoplecan’t move, as there is no stock,that is not the fault of the individual, those are blocks on carrying out the policy we are asked to, therefore it is Legally Unreasonable. Furthermore all businesses have a time line before liquidating & tenants were given NONE.
THIS SHOULD BE ROLLED OUT OVER SEVERAL YEARS AS IT IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHIN THE TIME SPECTRUM. This along with the real culprits & many other blocks, including lack of stock
is a plain infringement of our rights & the proper steps & stock are not in place, so that people will break the law unwillingly, because they can’t move,will get in to debt & be further fined for that. CAN WE GET TOGETHER TO DRAW UP THE LEGAL & PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITIES & PRESENT IT TO THE Government, THE INCOMPETANT HOUSING BENEFITS NATIONALLY, who are civil servants & therefore attached to the Government.
PRIVATE LANDLORDS ARE NOT BEING EFFECTED BECAUSE THE GOV is about capitalism.
I am gobsmacked that the clear legal inconsistencies & the shear outrage is not being lobbied already? PLEASE LETS NOT ROLL OVER & TAKE THIS LYING DOWN.